The fourth university... again?

I'm sure most of us are aware that Singapore would like to open the 4th university to accomodate more Singaporeans to pursue their education in Singapore.

SINGAPORE : The Government is looking into setting up a fourth university in Singapore.

During his National Day Rally speech on Sunday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong also said the objective is to allow 30 percent of each cohort to get into publicly-funded universities by 2015, compared to 23 percent today.

This is one way to level up society, and provide citizens with a top rate education.

More students are progressing to universities as they do better academically in schools.

15 percent of polytechnic students, for example, now go on to the local universities and many more go overseas.

In fact, estimates are that half of polytechnic students eventually gets a degree.

And Prime Minister Lee said Singapore should expand university places but must ensure that students get a good education and valuable skills.

But did any forgot....

SINGAPORE: Its arrival here was hailed as a tremendous boost for Singapore’s education hub aspirations.

The University of New South Wales (UNSW) is, after all, one of Australia’s top universities.

At full capacity, the local UNSW campus would have spun off $500 million annually for the economy, Singapore authorities had said.

But, barely two months after classes began for its pioneer batch of students, the Australian university — citing bottomline concerns — is heading for a sudden exit. It will close its Singapore campus when the semester ends on June 28.

The shock announcement was made yesterday in separate meetings to staff, students and the media, and a notice was posted on the UNSW Asia website. It cited a lack of demand, leading to insufficient funds for its operations here, as reason for the closure.

The university had anticipated an initial intake of 300 students, but its current enrolment is only 148. And, based on applications for its second intake in August, the university projected that it would achieve just over half of its enrolment target of 480.

Either UNSW is not been completely honest or the government know something that they don't.

To me this is really a case of reinventing the wheel for the sake of it. The money that will go into the fourth university would surely surpass whatever more that UNSW might need back then.

On the other hand, it may just be a very expensive and elaborate plan for this purpose.